Samsung opens a store in Frisco, but will there be more?

Samsung is opening its first D-FW Samsung Experience store today in Frisco’s Stonebriar Centre with the brand’s smartphones, laptops and accessories together in one space.

Allister Jones, Samsung’s senior vice president of retail operations, said the point of the store is “to give consumers the best Samsung experience and the support they need.”

If it reminds customers of an Apple store, so be it. Samsung has a big enough ecosystem of devices to show customers how to use them in its own branded store.

“This is where it all comes together,” said Jones, who works from Samsung Electronics Co.’s Plano office.

The store doesn’t sell Samsung TVs, but the staff of 20 people — who were already Samsung evangelists and have been put through six weeks of training — can demonstrate how to use smartphones with their TVs.

Customers may need help using their earbuds with their watches or a lesson on how the S-Pen works with the just-released Galaxy S phones.

There’s also a window to an onsite repair center, which adds a bit of theater, Jones said.

This is only the fifth Samsung store in the U.S. compared with the 25,000 stores run by Best Buy, Walmart, Target, Sam’s Club, Costco, Verizon, T-Mobile and others that sell Samsung products.

What’s the point of having five stores?

Samsung had started rolling out stores before the pandemic, and, like most retailers, paused its plans and took its time to evaluate the retail landscape.

“We took the opportunity to redesign our retail strategy,” Jones said, “to make it more harmonious with online and smaller.” The Stonebriar store is 3,680 square feet versus the 5,000 to 11,000 square feet of the other locations.

“Any bigger is too much room, and we can preserve the experience in a smaller store,” he said.

The five other Samsung Experience stores that opened before the pandemic are in the Houston Galleria, Roosevelt Field mall in Garden City, N.Y., The Americana at Brand in Los Angeles, which will soon house the first Amazon Style department store, and the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, Calif.

Jones isn’t ready to commit to more stores but said the Stonebriar store is “really important” in making that decision.

“We have an appetite to support our consumers in more markets,” he said, “and we’re going to learn a lot from this store.”

On a global basis, Samsung has the biggest market share for smartphones, but in the U.S. Apple has been the smartphone market share leader for more than a decade.

Do Apple stores, which have been around for 20 years, have something to do with that?

“We’re not worried about what the competition is doing,” Jones said. “We’ll learn if this is right for us.”

Apple has more than 270 stores in the U.S., and “that’s made a big difference in how Apple manages its launch events,” said Maurice Klaehne, analyst at Counterpoint, a global technology research firm.

Apple ships more phones to its own stores than to the stores of wireless carriers, he said. When the customer is there, they can sell them accessories, other devices, they get to know the genius bar.”

While Samsung has its own ecosystem, its Android devices can work with other brands — “a Google phone or a watch from Fossil,” Klaehne said. “And some consumers want to experience more brands.”

Twitter: @MariaHalkias

Looking for more retail coverage? Click here to read all retail news and updates. Click here to subscribe to D-FW Retail and more newsletters from The Dallas Morning News.